The Nation Newspaper

Tag: reversal

  • Bizarre role reversal

    Bizarre role reversal

    • It is oil thieves that now set traps for security officials rather than the other way round

    It is unfortunate that technology which ought to have been deployed by security agencies to stay ahead of oil thieves and other criminals has now found its way into the hands of undesirable elements in the Niger Delta.

    It has been reported that oil thieves responsible for cornering revenue that should have been used for national development have now installed close circuit television (CCTV) along the  pipeline routes to aid their nefarious activities and beat our security forces.

    In addition, it is said that the oil bandits  have now acquired sophisticated rocket launchers, among other weapons, to ensure steady flow of crude oil supply for the illegal oil refineries in the region.

    This is a wake-up call for the federal and sub-national governments, as well as the security forces. It is a shame that given the level of insecurity in the country for more than a decade, we still lack basic equipment that oil thieves have found easy to purchase. President Bola Tinubu should mandate the National Security Adviser and service chiefs to ensure that all the CCTV cameras and other equipment installed by the thieves  are dismantled within weeks.

    It is commendable that crude oil production has picked up of recent, thus boosting national revenue. We cannot afford to be back to the era of so much shortage that made government resort to the heavy borrowing that has become not only an embarrassment, but an albatross.

    For so long, in various sectors of the society, criminals have always seized the initiative, and trillions of Naira have been lost to corrupt officials colluding to defraud the nation. As a result, Nigeria became the internationally acknowledged poverty capital of the world. Unemployment rate is high while crime keeps soaring month-on-month as the youth, including the well educated, are lured into crime.

    The Niger Delta where relative calm had been achieved  in recent years after a period of free reign by militants, is becoming restive again as a result of acts of omission and commission by the state.

     The President, as Chief Executive of the Federation, has been invested with powers and the mandate to get the machinery of government working perfectly. Whatever was wrong has to be corrected in the interest of the ordinary people.

    Read Also: Bandits kill one, abduct 25 in Southern Kaduna

    Fossil oil, sadly, remains the mainstay of the Nigerian economy and therefore deserves full attention. There has been inexplicable delay in procuring modern technology for surveillance and protection of national assets in the industry. It is, however, never too late to  make the needed procurement.

    Federal lawmakers who have the power of appropriation and oversight have a duty to ensure that fund is earmarked in the 2024 budget for all that is required in this regard. And, given the lesson learnt from previous appropriation for CCTV cameras for streets of the federal capital territory and other cities, lawmakers have a responsibility to ensure that the technology budgeted for are actually procured and installed.

    Nigeria runs the risk of other African sub-regional leaders like South Africa, Egypt and Kenya leaving us behind. The African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) spearheaded by Morocco has already taken off without a clear roadmap for the Nigerian business community to effectively participate and benefit from it. The petrodollars that accrued to the country in decades was hardly used to develop it.

    Government has committed much of our resources to rehabilitating the dilapidated refineries, with the Port-Harcourt facility expected to come on stream in December. The other three are expected to become operational next year. Taken along with the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote private refinery, a boisterous Mele Kyari, Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, said Nigeria would soon become a net importer of petroleum products and thus save the Naira from free fall.

    All this will amount to nothing if the security forces continue to demonstrate utter lack of capacity to defend the oil facilities.  The buck stops at the President’s table as he is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The time to act is now, that he seems to enjoy the goodwill of the international community. He  should therefore make necessary purchases, installation and secure training of the personnel. Any official thereafter found to fall short of national expectations should be shown the way out. 

  • A welcome reversal

    A welcome reversal

    • Forex restrictions on 43 items did not achieve desired results

    It is perhaps understandable that the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) announcement lifting the restriction on the 43 items prohibited, in 2015, from accessing foreign exchange (FX) from the official foreign exchange windows would generate a measure of disquiet. Coming eight years since the apex bank decided that the items for which the country ordinarily possesses local comparative advantage in production should have no place in the official forex allocation mix, the decision would ordinarily seem typical of the policy somersaults for which the country is renowned.

    Vice-Chairman of Basic Metal, Iron and Steel Products Sector of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Lekan Adewoye, puts the matter succinctly: “Some of our members, who have invested in backward integration will now start to regret this move because everyone who can access forex will claim to be an importer, forcing sincere manufacturers to close shop, thus increasing the number of jobless persons”.

    He continues: “Nigerian manufacturers don’t really have any competitive advantage over those in other developing countries. At best, what you have is competitive parity, because something has to be an advantage if your competitors don’t have it. And the little incentive that the government has provided is now being removed by the directive of the Central Bank of Nigeria.”

    The apprehensions of the manufacturers are understandably hinged on three grounds. The danger of collapsing the advantage hitherto enjoyed by the local producers, thus putting their very survival at stake; the distinct possibility of the gains of the past eight years being eroded as producers and importers will have the same unfettered access to the official forex market; and the grim possibility of factory closures and increased unemployment from unfair competition.

    But then, the position of the apex bank is no less persuasive. It says it wants to “promote orderliness and professional conduct by all Nigerian foreign exchange market participants to ensure market forces determine exchange rates on a willing buyer – willing seller principle. And that it wants to “ensure price stability and is seeking to boost liquidity in the Nigerian foreign exchange market. As liquidity improves, we expect the distortions to moderate.” And finally, that the removal would “make monetary policies effective, reduce the inflation rate and eliminate the need for importers of these products to go to the parallel market”.

    Read Also: Tribunal upholds ex-House leader Doguwa’s election

    Painful as it may sound, the truth is that the forex restriction policy has largely failed to deliver on its advertised objectives. Popular as the restriction was at inception, it was more of a psychological thing. In other words, any claimed boost in local outputs in the selected items would seem more apparent than real. Today, we know that inflation is still on the rampage, so has the demand for forex, even for those excluded items gone on uncurbed. And as the CBN is wont to argue, forex demand for the excluded items, merely shifted to the parallel market while the exclusion lasted.

    Yes, forex exclusion might have served the interest of MAN and other bodies while it lasted; the real question is – has it served its advertised cause of boosting domestic capacity, bringing down the prices of the affected goods and by so doing giving the importers a run for their money? The answer of course is in the negative. What about the distortions in the forex management which the apex bank also alluded to? Are they not also valid?

    It would seem that MAN and those opposed to the latest CBN move are only focused on the symptom rather than the malaise. The fundamental problem here is forex scarcity which the apex bank has little or no control over. Clearly, if the argument by MAN is that local businesses deserve special protections given the odds so clearly stacked against them, there can be no argument against that. In fact, the issue cannot be overstated: the sector needs all the help that it can get. MAN and others surely have a bounden duty to properly articulate and channel such issues that concern them to the fiscal authorities for attention.

    But their fixation with the apex bank would in the circumstance appear utterly misplaced. Surely, there can be little or no arguments about the current move to reset the apex bank, to restore it to its core mandate of monetary policy management. Surely, it is the way to go if only to ensure a more stable macro-economic environment that the economy badly needs.

  • Court affirms reversal of Kashamu, others’ suspension by PDP

    •Party’s power to discipline erring members upheld

    A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Apo, Abuja, has insisted on its reversal of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) expulsion of Senator Buruji Kashamu and some other members of the party.

    Delivering judgment yesterday, Justice Valentine Ashi averred that although the PDP, by its constitution, has the power to reprimand or take disciplinary measures against erring members, including to bar or expel such members, but it must observe due process while exercising such power.

    The PDP, earlier this year, announced its expulsion of Senator Kashamu (Ogun East and now the party’s governorship candidate in the state) and the state Chairman, Adebayo Dayo, through a letter, dated August 1.

    But in a ruling on October 10, Justice Ashi set aside the expulsion and held that purported expulsion was unlawful.

    The judge held that it was done in flagrant disobedience of a subsisting order of the court made on December 7, last year, which was restated on January 9, directing parties not to do anything to jeopardise the hearing of the pending case brought against Kashamu, Dayo and two others by the PDP.

    The judge delivered the verdict in a suit in which the party prayed the court to, among others, hold that it has the power to discipline its erring members.

    Justice Ashi recalled that he earlier set aside the defendants’ suspension on the grounds that it was done without due process and during the pendency of the suit.

    The judge granted the first two prayers by the plaintiff, which relate to its power to reprimand erring members, but added that granting them did not reverse the court’s earlier decision voiding the expulsion.

    Read also: PDP hails courts validation of Kashamu’s expulsion

    He said: “The decision to suspend the defendants was nullified because it was taken during the pendency of the suit, which suspension this court had reversed in an earlier ruling.

    “That the plaintiff’s first and second reliefs succeed is not to say that the ruling has been reversed. Parties are to revert to the status quo before the suspension. The plaintiff is at liberty to exercise its disciplinary powers, but with due process.”

    He declined to pronounce judgment on the plaintiff’s other reliefs, including the prayers for restraining injunctions against the defendants to prevent them from taking steps to disrupt the PDP’s non-elective convention last held by the party.

    The judge said the reliefs were no longer virile because they had been overtaken by event, since the convention had been held.

     

  • Senate may seek PHCN privatisation reversal

    Senate may seek PHCN privatisation reversal

    • DisCos are bankrupt, says Murray-Bruce

    Bewildered senators were yesterday told that Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) are technically bankrupt.

    Chairman, Senate Committee on Privatisation, Senator Ben Murra- Bruce, told his colleagues that the way out of the worsening power situation in the country was to revisit the privatisation of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).

    Senator Murray-Bruce spoke following a motion on “DisCos, electricity consumers and the burden of overbilling” sponsored by Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi West).

    The lawmaker said those expecting the DisCos to install meters in their houses should forget the idea since it was obvious that the DisCos lacked the resources to buy meters.

    He said: “The DisCos are technically bankrupt; they have no money to buy meters. Unless we revisit the entire privatisation, there will be no solution to the power sector. We have to urgently revisit the privatisation exercise in its entirety.”

    Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Power, Senator Bukar Mustapha (Katsina North) also stressed the need to address inefficiency in the power sector.

    Mustapha who said the value chain in the power sector is weakest at the DisCos level insisted that the country was sitting on an emergency that should be drastically addressed in the interest of the country and its development.

    He said: ‘The problem we have is the inefficiency within the system which we have actually so far not decided to address. I will give you a small example: Nigeria has an installed capacity of 12,522 Megawatts (Mw) of power.

    “We have non-available capacity of 5,300Mw; we have non-operational capacity of 3,180Mw meaning that what is actually available is just over 4,000Mw out of 12,500Mw.

  • Nigeria seeks reversal of Common External Tariffs on drugs

    The Federal Government is considering a review of the Common External Tariffs (CET) because the subsisting order is hurting the pharmaceutical industry.

    The Ministry of Health and his counterpart in Investment, Trade and Industry  are coordinating the government’s bid to reverse the CET, which has been widely criticised as unfair to the Nigerian pharmaceutical manufacturing industry.

    The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), CET, which implementation began last year, reduces import duty tariff on finished pharmaceutical products to zero per cent compared with the five to 20 per cent duty on raw and packaging materials respectively. This scenario hugely favours importation to the detriment of local production.

    Nigeria accounts for about 75 per cent of the region’s pharmaceutical manufacturing with Ghana accounting for about 20 per cent, as against  other sub-regional countries that depend  mostly on importation. This development has prompted stakeholders  to impress it on government to take  measure to protect the local industry by invoking the Import Adjustment Tax of the CET, while working on a medium to long-term review of the agreement.

    Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, said Nigeria has written a letter to the Ecowas seeking a reversal of the CET as it relates to the pharmaceutical industry, noting that the CET undermines the huge investments that had been made in the Nigerian pharmaceutical industry.

    “It doesn’t make sense to allocate higher tariffs to raw pharmaceutical materials, it doesn’t make sense, government is looking at the reversal,” Adewole said.

    Adewole recently undertook factory tour of the N9 billion World Health Organisation (WHO)-standard new pharmaceutical plant of Fidson Healthcare Plc.

    At least four companies, including May & Baker Nigeria Plc, invested in WHO-standard plants to further upscale  domestic manufacturing into global competitiveness.

    Adewole said the government would support the development of the pharmaceutical industry by patronising locally produced drugs and ensuring prompt payment for government orders.

    The Minister of Health, who was impressed by the breathtaking plant of Fidson Healthcare, said the government may consider granting waivers to the company to support it.

    He added that the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) will also be encouraged to consider supporting Fidson with funding for its raw materials and additional equipment.

    The Fidson Healthcare’s new plant, located in Ota, Ogun State, is reputed as the largest pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Africa. It is one of the few that had been shortlisted for WHO certification in Nigeria. The new plant is equipped to produce six distinct product lines-tablets, capsules, oral liquids, creams and ointments, dry powder and intravenous infusions to meet Nigeria and regional medicine needs.

    The new manufacturing plant is expected to save and generate foreign exchange (forex), create employment, reduce health tourism and contribute meaningfully to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of the Federal Government through job creation and reduction in infant mortality and maternal death.

  • Ekiti workers decry reversal of salaries

    •Govt: error from service provider
    •APC: Fayose must stop deceiving workers

    Government workers in Ekiti State have decried the withdrawal of their salaries, few minutes after most of them received bank alerts of payment on Friday.

    The workers, many of who are owed three months arrears, had celebrated on receiving the alerts of payment of two months arrears.

    Their joy turned “sour” when they received another alert reversing the payment.

    The development forced many of them to make phone calls to their colleagues to confirm if they had the same experience.

    Some of the workers, who pleaded for anonymity, expressed shock with the development which they said has dampened their morale and exposed them to ridicule.

    A Grade Level 13 officer said: “I was very happy when I received alert that my account has been credited with two months salaries and I started calculating how I would spend it but I was shocked to receive another alert within an hour withdrawing the money paid into my account.”

    Commissioner for Information Lanre Ogunsuyi said the government was sorry for the inconvenience which he attributed to “an error by the firm  handling the computerisation of accounts”.

    Ogunsuyi said: “We are aware of the development and I want to say that government is sorry for the inconvenience this might have caused our workers. Today, everybody will get one-month pay.

    “It was an error by the firm that handled the computerisation of accounts, it was an error by our service provider.”

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) has warned Governor Ayo Fayose to stop deceiving workers.

    In a statement yesterday by its Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, the APC warned Fayose against persecuting union leaders for demanding for workers’ rights.

    Olatunbosun described the action of crediting workers’ accounts only to withdraw same after media hype as “callous and highly fraudulent”.

    He warned Fayose to “stop playing games with the lives of workers”.

    According to him, Fayose’s inconsistent figures on the state debts and non-transparent manner in the conduct of government’s business were enough for workers to lose faith in him.

    He said: “This is not the first time the governor is doing this to workers. He did it to primary school teachers last year when he learnt that they were to embark on strike.

    “That is what he did last week after learning of strike plan by teachers after they refused to help him in a solidarity rally to save him from Ekitigate probe.”

    “The governor who said the state was broke suddenly paid two months salary after learning that the teachers were bent on protesting the non-payment of their salary arrears, even though he quickly reversed a month salary from their accounts after workers were celebrating payment of two months arrears.

    “As we speak, Fayose is threatening labour leaders for legitimately asking for the rights of workers.

    “He has relocated government business to Afao- Ekiti just as he did when he was about to be impeached in 2006.”

  • NECA seeks reversal of CBN’s directives on N50 stamp duty

    NECA seeks reversal of CBN’s directives on N50 stamp duty

    The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has expressed ‘grave concern’ over the directive of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) to charge N50 per eligible transaction in accordance with the provisions of the Stamp Duties Act and Federal Government Financial Regulations (2009).

    NECA recalled that organised businesses had opposed attempts by the Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST) to compel companies to affix a N50 postal stamp on receipts, invoices and documents of transactions in excess of N1,000.

    The Director-General of NECA, Olusegun Oshinowo, in a press statement, said there was a pending case at the Court of Appeal on the matter between Kasmal International Services Limited and Access Bank & 23 others.

    He said: “NIPOST is aware of this development and all parties, as law abiding citizens, are expected to await the pronouncement of the court.

    “The power to administer the Stamp Duties Act is within the purview of the Commissioner for Stamps as provided for in Section six of the Act, and not NIPOST or CBN, and that the Act did not make the affixing of postage stamp mandatory, neither did it specify the value to be a N50 postage stamp”.

    The NECA chief urged the Buhari administration not to introduce policies that will increase the burden on the citizens and firms within the economy. He advised Nigeria to take a cue from other climes where, according to him, stamp duty’s applicability is limited to purchases involving large sums like a house purchase or importation of goods, as against the position of applying N50 postage stamp to “all receipts given by any bank (or financial institution) in acknowledgement of services rendered in respect of electronic transfer and teller deposits”.

    On the stand of Organised Private Sector (OPS), Oshinowo said: “President Buhari will do well by ignoring the call by the CBN to boost the revenue base of the Federal Government through this means, which will increase the burden on citizens and kill struggling businesses.”

  • Tragic reversal

    • Nigeria leaning on Chad and S/African mercenaries calls for urgent fixing of the country  

    On 18 April 1983 Chad, under warlord President Hissene Habre, invaded and seized 19 islands on Lake Chad, inside Nigerian territory.

    Nigeria’s retaliation, by 21st Armoured Brigade in Maiduguri, under the overall command of the then Brig. Muhammadu Buhari, General Officer Commanding (GOC) 3 Division, pushed the invaders some 50 kilometres deep into Chadian territory.

    Thirty-two years later, however, Chad, though under an international coalition of forces, would appear the game-changer in Nigeria’s bungled war against Boko Haram, plaguing Nigeria’s North East in particular, but planting morbid fear in the whole of northern Nigeria.

    Only a few days after Chad’s intervention, under an African Union (AU) conceived international regional force against Boko Haram, the integrated armies of Nigeria, Chad and Niger (Cameroun is reportedly yet to join, except in battling Boko Haram inside its own territory) have recaptured, from the Islamists, Malumfatori, Gamboru, Mafa, Abadam and Marte.

    Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters (DHQ) has, of course, balked at the suggestion that Chad, not the Nigerian Army in its own territory, is calling the shot. Nevertheless, it is clear that Chad’s intervention has been decisive; and if the current successes mark the final turning point to eventually routing Boko Haram, Chad will, not unjustifiably, claim credit.

    The defeat of Boko Haram cannot be bad news — in any case, not to the luckless North East locals, whose towns had been captured, and people exposed to Boko Haram’s savage code.  But it is certainly sobering, if not outright bad news, that neighbouring Chad had to come to Nigeria’s rescue.  Pray, what plague has afflicted Nigeria and its military?

    That sobering question is imperative because, parallel to the Chad intervention, news came that Nigerian authorities had allegedly hired 100 South African mercenaries to help free the rump of the Chibok 276 school girls, who Boko Haram kidnapped in April 2013, to intense universal outrage.

    Executive Outcome, the mercenary company, is reportedly owned by one Lt. Col. Eeben Barlow, formerly of the South African Defence Forces; who from newspaper reports had previously fought in Angola, Sierra Leone, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. He was allegedly hired, aside from springing the Chibok girls, to “skill” Nigerian soldiers.

    So, Nigeria would spurn a military training offer by the United States, only to hire mercenaries to do the job? And these mercenaries, who their home government has disowned, with Maite Nkoana Mashabane, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, expressing sadness at the development; and saying there are enough laws to prosecute the alleged mercenaries, any time they set foot in South Africa?

    Nuhu Ribadu, former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) boss but now Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate for Adamawa State, has admitted Nigeria embraced black market arms because the Western countries were shunning it. So is Nigeria, though a democracy, fast sliding into a pariah state again? What really is happening to this country?

    President Goodluck Jonathan, on the virtual eve of a crucial election, stands legitimately charged with leading Nigeria to bust. Still, his tenure is only the culmination of a progressively decaying Nigerian state.

    Take the Chad intervention, which should really be counter-intuitive. Chad is less populated, less blessed with resources, less vital in regional standing in the context of global geo-politics, and has smaller military budget.

    Yet, it appears to suffer less corruption (than Nigeria, in any case!) and has somehow instilled more discipline in its army. It appears a long, winding road from 1983, when Buhari crushed the Chad invasion of Nigeria! And what if Chad, after its current help, suddenly develops territorial ambition, with Nigeria manifesting disturbing symptoms of a country unable to defend its integrity?

    Nigeria, from the saviour of West Africa to the wimp being saved by less endowed countries, is a tragic reversal of monumental proportion. But that grave challenge compels a solemn re-visit, to halt the decay in the Nigerian state, once and for all.

    By making the right choices, this election offers a historic opportunity for a rebuilding process, starting from the scratch.

  • Reps seek reversal of $550m ICT capital flight

    Reps seek reversal of $550m ICT capital flight

    There is a need for the country to save the whopping $550 million it spends in ICT related expenses annually, the House of Representatives Committee on ICT has said.

    Speaking while on an oversight visit to Galaxy Backbone yesterday, the Chairman of the House Committee on ICT, Hon. Ibrahim Shehu Gusau, said the time has come for the Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) to consolidate their data under the same umbrella as a cost saving measure.

    He said the country was utilizsing about 15 to 20 percent of its annual budget on ICT related expenses and, stating that thecommittee was ready to champion the crusade for a shift in the line of expenditure.

    “I am concerned that the scarce forex that we have is being spent outside the country. $550 million goes out to foreign service providers. 15 to 20 per cent of the National Budget goes to ICT related services on a yearly basis,” he said.

    Gusau, wondered why agencies like the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), NITDA, Nigerian Postal Service NIPOST and the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) could not work hand-in-hand with Galaxy Backbone and NIGCOMSAT to save the Federal Government the huge amount paid foreign companies on ICT.

    He expressed delight that Galaxy Backbone is patronizsing NIGCOMSAT, adding that it portends a good omen for the nation in terms of saving of scarce resources. According to him, his committee would push for a consolidation of all the MDAs ICT programmes in the 2014 budget.

    “We will take in to the level of the executive, Head of Service and the Secretary to the Government and the budget Office as well.

  • Lagos Assembly seeks reversal of Egbin power station sale

    Lagos Assembly seeks reversal of Egbin power station sale

    Panel to probe abuse of pupil

    The Lagos State House of Assembly has frowned at the sale of the Egbin Power Station in Ikorodu to a foreign firm.

    The House empowered Governor Babatunde Fashola to do everything possible to reverse the sale and ensure that Lagos is given the first right of offer.

    It made the resolution at plenary yesterday when the member representing the host community (Ikorodu Constituency II), Mrs. Adebimpe Akinsola, decried the sale of the power station without consideration for the host community and state.

    Mrs. Akinsola, who said she read about the sale in a newspaper, was bitter that the Federal Government could sell such an important infrastructure without giving Lagos State the right of refusal.

    Deputy Speaker Kolawole Taiwo said Lagos State initiated the independent power generation project, which he said was frustrated by the Olusegun Obasanjo-led administration, and should be given the first offer now that the Federal Government has bought into the idea, more so when Egbin is in Lagos.

    Taiwo said: “The activity of the station will affect the host community. The people’s interest was not taken into consideration in the sale of the station and this is wrong.”

    The Speaker, Adeyemi Ikuforiji, condemned the way the sale, was handled by the Federal Government and insisted that the sale should be reversed.

    The Assembly set up a four-man ad-hoc committee to investigate the alleged inhuman treatment meted out to a female pupil of Kadara Junior Grammar School, Ebute Metta, by the headteacher for using hijab.

    The MSSN alleged that the headteacher gave the 16-year-old pupil, Aisha Alabi, 43 strokes of cane for using hijab.

    Mr. Suuru Avoseh (Badagry Constituency II) said: “It is an unfortunate event and we do not expect such to happen here in Lagos. There is no law that prohibits religious dressing in our schools.

    “We need to be careful in handling religious matters of this nature. I will suggest that the concerned school and the Ministry of Education be invited to the House .

    The Chief Whip, Razaq Balogun, said: “We have only heard a side of the story. I do not want to believe the child was beaten for wearing hijab. We should investigate the matter and not jump to conclusion.”

    The panel members are Balogun, Chairman; Mr. Wahab Alawiye-King; Mrs. Muhibat Rufai Adeyemi and Mrs. Bimpe Akinsola.